On Saturday, May 28th, the Girls Club in Baguio City gathered to discuss the value of compassion and its significance in our lives, in our families, and within our greater communities here in the Philippines. It had been a while since we last gathered because it is summer vacation for the teens, so it was a great time to catch up with one another! School begins on June 6th for many of the girls, and they all shared their excitement for their new classes and new experiences to come!

We began our day by brainstorming on the idea of compassion and some of the words that came to mind were: caring, love to others, concern, understanding other people, and HELPING others (since that is the action!)

Afterwards, we looked through pictures from a BBC website, which pertained to children’s rights.

This was very helpful because we got to discuss issues that may not necessarily affect the Philippines, but are more prevalent in other areas around the world. Reading through the captions underneath the photos together, we were able to discuss compassion in further detail. The slideshow of pictures can be found here.

From there, we came up with a list of other social problems that we wanted to appease, after witnessing many of the issues in our own local communities which included child abuse, child labor, illiteracy, poverty, access to basic needs like food, money, and shelter, and environmental responsibility.

When asked the question, “If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?” Here are some of the responses:

§ An end to corruption

§ Education for all

§ Peace on earth all over

§ No vices: cigarettes, liquor, drugs

§ Love for God

§ A clean environment

We ended our time together by reading through some of the entries on the Girls

Club blog and recognizing the scope of the Girls Clubs all over the world! So exciting!

The girls especially enjoyed the pictures of the Girls Club from P.S. 179, where the girls wrote Valentine Day cards to the Girls Clubs around the world. We may just have to respond!